Evaluating individualistic theories

• Psychodynamic theories Freud -strength

  • importance of early socialisation and family relationship in understanding criminal behaviour
  • psychoanalytic explanation had some influence on policies for dealing w crime and deviance
• psychodynamic theories Freud- limitations

  • critics doubt existence of ‘unconscious mind’
  • psychoanalytic explanation are unscientific and subjective-rely on accepting psychoanalysts claims
• Strengths of bowlby

  • Considers role of parent-child relationship in explaining criminality
  • showed that more in his sample of 44 delinquents has suffered material deprivation than a control group
• .Limitations of bowlby

  • retrospective study- had to actively recall past events.
  • Not explain why the order 61% were delinquent
  • no longer widely accepted
• strengths of eysenck personality theory

  • theory is useful in describing how measurable tendencies increase persons risk is offending
  • some studies support his predictions- offenders tend towards being extravert, neurotic, psychotic
• Limitations of Eysenck personality theory

  • Farrington - studies that prisoners are neurotic and psychotic but not extraverted
  • being in prison could cause people to become neurotic
  • convicted offenders may not be typical of offenders as a whole
  • used self-report questionnaires, may not produce valid results, may lie
• Strengths of learning theories - differential association

  • crime often runs in families support the theory. Maybe because they learnt criminal values and techniques in the family
  • Matthew found juvenile delinquents more likely to have friends who commit anti-social acts, suggesting they learn behaviour from peers
  • attitude of work groups can normalise white collar crime, enabling justification of behaviour
• limitations -learning theories : differential association

  • not everyone who is exposed becomes criminal
• Strengths- learning theories: operant learning

  • skinner studies in learning animals show that they learn from experience through reinforcement. Some human learning is also of this kind
  • can be applied to offending, Jeffrey states if crime leads to more rewarding than punishing outcomes-more likely to offend
• Limitations-learning theories: operant learning

  • based studies of learning in animals, not adequate model of how humans learn criminal behaviour
  • theory ignores internal mental process like thinking, personal values and attitudes. Explains criminal behaviour solely term of external rewards, punishment
  • human have free will and can choose their course of action.
• Strengths-learning theories: social learning theory

  • Bandura takes account of the fact that we are social beings. We learn from experiences of others, not just from own direct experience.
  • Bandura shows children who observed aggressive behaviour being rewarded, imitated behaviour. shows importance of role models in learning deviant behaviour
• Limitations-learning theories: social learning theory

  • theory based on laboratory studies Laboratories are artificial settings findings not be valid for real-life situations.
  • assumes peoples behaviour completely determined by learning experiences ignores their freedom of choice. conflicts with legal views of crime, assume we have free will to commit crime.
  • Not all observed behaviour is easily imitated. We might see film which a safecracker is rewarded with the loot;, we lack the skills to imitate the behaviour.
• Strengths: Cognitive theories- criminal personality theory

  • idea that criminals thinking patterns are different from normal led to other research. e.g PICTS (the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles) is questionnaire aimed at revealing if someone shows criminal thought patterns.

  • Successful treatments, known- cognitive behavioural therapy, been developed based on idea: criminals thought processes can be corrected with treatment.
• limitations- cognitive theories: criminal personality theory

  • yochelson and Samenow not use control group of non-criminals to see if 'normal' people make same thinking errors.
  • sample= unrepresentative:no women and most men found insane and sent to psychiatric hospital. Yet Yochelson and Samenow claim all offenders share same thinking errors as sample.
  • was high sample attrition(drop-out rate). By end only 30 left in study.
• Strengths-cognitive theories: moral development theory

  • Some studies show delinquents more likely to have immature moral development, as the theory predicts.

  • Thornton and Reid found theory to be truer for crimes such as theft and robbery (which may involve reasoning) than crimes of violence (which are often impulsive).
• limitations- cognitive theories: moral development theory

  • Kohlberg focuses on moral thinking rather than moral behaviour. Someone may be perfectly capable of thinking morally while acting immorally.
• General criticisms of individualistic theories

  • artificiality
  • sample bias
  • neglect of social factors